"It's alright, Hugh. I got this for fighting Spaniards." Alan winked. "The one for Frogs is to come by post."
"Hurray!" Hugh piped, and even Sewallis sounded glad. "Let's go inside, shall we?" Lewrie suggested. "I'm fair dry, and a tad peckish. That coach ride… let me but park my fundament in my favorite wing-chair. See if it awakens! Oh, Caroline, this is my steward, Aspinall. And his burden… that's Toulon."
"Ma'am," Aspinall said, doffing his hat and making a shy "leg." "Mister Aspinall," Caroline replied, with a regal incline of her head and a warm smile of welcome. "My husband has written of you so often. It will be quite the sailors' rendezvous here; you, Mister Padgett, and Andrews, for a time. I hope you take joy of your stay here."
"Lordy, I hope not, Mistress," Aspinall said, making a jape in his slow, shy way, "but… a sailors' rendezvous is where the Impress Gang gathers 'fore they goes out t'kidnap unwary sailormen."
"Let's call it 'Fiddler's Green,' then." Lewrie laughed out loud. "Free-flowin' rum, beer, and wine; music 'round the clock; and never a groat does the publican demand."
"Amen to that, Cap'um Lewrie." Aspinall smiled. "I'll be yer burden just 'til Monday, though, ma'am. Me and Padgett… we thought t'go back up t'London for a piece. Me mum an' dad's there… and Ma's doin' poorly. 'Til Cap'um Lewrie gets a new ship, ma'am."
"A new ship, yes… I see." Caroline frowned, turning to Alan for confirmation with a vexed, worrisome look. Complete with that vertical exclamation point wrinkled 'twixt her brows. "Do they say…?"
"Oh, not for weeks, I'm bound, dearest," Lewrie hastened to assure her. "Nigh on a month, perhaps. The First Lord, Earl Spencer, to my face told me I was due a spell of shore leave."
"Daddy's new kitty?" Charlotte exclaimed, going to peer close into the wicker cage. "Ooh, I want to hold him!"
"I wouldn't, young miss," Aspinall cautioned. "He's a terror when he's upset. An' the coach ride didn't set him well."
"Aye, Charlotte, leave him be, for a while, there's a good chub."
"But, Daddy…!" the wee'un said, stamping an imperious foot.
"Let's go in," Lewrie said again. "I'm dying to see what you've done with the place. All those improvements you wrote of…"
The formal salon was now furnished in light, airy fabrics, homey cherry or walnut settees, and such; the larger dining room was furnished as well. In the entry hall, those red-lacquered Venetian bombe commodes that Clotworthy Chute had "obtained" (how, he'd prefer never to know!) flanked the carpeted stairs, bearing coin-silver candelabras.
"Gawd, it's magnificent, Caroline!" He breathed in awe, as she preened proudly; a visitor might think the Lewries settled and financially secure for ages. More to the point, possessed of good taste all that age, which was more than could be said for even titled households, who equated cost with instant elegance, no matter how garish.
Toulon was making unsettled rumbling, hissing noises as Aspinall set his cage down in the entry hall beside the luggage. Wee Charlotte was down on her knees, poking and peeking.
"Best we feed him quick so he doesn't get it in his head to run outside and get lost," Lewrie suggested. " 'Fore he runs afoul of those setters Sewallis is so proud of, hey, Sewallis?"
He looked at his eldest son, remembering that Sewallis had been half terrified of his old cat, William Pitt, before he'd passed over.
Well, chary of him Lewrie amended to himself, being charitable.
Sewallis shared a look with him, glad that he'd remembered his dogs-though he looked more than cool to the idea of a new cat about the place. He shrugged as if it were no matter, yet…
Aspinall gently moved Charlotte out of the way and opened the cage. Toulon bounded out, uttering a wary, confused trill, then leapt for the parlour, where he immediately slunk under a settee to fuss.
"Oh, come and see the morning room!" Caroline enthused, as she took Lewrie by the hand to lead him from one wonder to the next. "That particoloured fabric you sent me, darling… two bolts were just enough. See? Much too sheer for dress material, not in England at any rate. Heavens, do Venetian ladies strut about that undressed?"
Aye, they do, Lewrie secretly smirked; an'a damn'fine show they were too!
"… drape this one large window. What do you think?"
He was a bit disappointed. He'd intended that she run up a gown from the fabric-or, as he'd most lasciviously hinted in his letter which had accompanied it, a sheer bed-gown and dressing robe? In his heart-of-hearts fantasy, he'd have loved to see her through both thin layers, every sweet inch of her flame-draped by the subtle, marbley waves of umber, peach, ochre, and burgundy, like one of Lady Emma Hamilton's most pornographic "Attitudes"!
Now that cloth made bright, cheerful drapes for the window in their smaller dining room, where they usually ate enfamille, without houseguests. Caroline had coordinated plush, ochre velvet overdrapes, using the sheer material as gauzy inner drapes, and had tablecloth and napery of peach, with the other colours picked out here and there in the paintings' frames, some fresh paint on the chair rail, but… It wasn't the use he'd wished.
"Here, kitty-kitty!" He could hear Charlotte still coaxing in the salon, and a faint carp from Toulon as he was chivvied from pillar to post in search of a new hidey-hole in a strange, threatening house.
" Charlotte, leave the cat be!" Lewrie called over his shoulder, wearing a supposedly pleased smile of appreciation on his phyz for the drapes. "He's not used to you, and he wants to be left in peace!"
He said it in an exasperated, out-of-his-depth semblance of his best quarterdeck voice, the one he'd use on slow brace-tenders. Which brought forth a whine from Charlotte as she began to blub up, to be so loudly chastised.
"Alan, really…" Caroline gently chid.
"Don't want her eat' half-alive, that's all, dearest," Lewrie tried to quibble. "Aye, they're fetchin' as Hell, aren't they, these drapes? Whatever was I thinkin'… that you'd make a gown of it, in Anglesgreen, and all… "
"Oh, do come out, kitty… Owwwwl Mummy!" was the shriek.
Rrrrowww! It could have been fright; it could have been a glad victory cry. Lewrie could see, once he'd turned his head, his cat making a dash for the stairs, a black-white streak nigh flat to the floor and his legs churning like a Naples centipede. There went another streak in pale blue moire satin and white lace, as Caroline tore off to comfort her "precious little girl." Left with the boys, Lewrie looked over to see Hugh pursing his mouth to blow a fart-like sound with his lips and rolling his eyes. Evidently, Charlotte 's curiosity, and the teary result, wasn't exactly a new thing in their house. And Sewallis surprised him with a world-weary, almost adult sigh of exasperation. And a high-pitched "Hmmpph!" or "Tittch!"
"Girls," Lewrie agreed, hands behind his back, and tipping them both a conspiratorial wink. "They do take a power o' gettin' used to."
Lewrie figured he'd done enough damage indoors for the nonce. It was time to trot, 'til domestic "bliss" was re-established.
"How's your pony farin', lads? And, Sewallis, where're those dogs? Does your mother ever let 'em in the house?"
"Uhm, no… only when they were pups." Sewallis brightened. "We leave them part of the old coach-house. Do you want to see them? Now?"
"Aye, I do. You give your brother, Hugh, one too?" Lewrie joshed, leading them out through the kitchens.
"We share," Sewallis replied most primly.
"No, we don't. They're all his. Don't want a dog anyway. Want a fox kit. Or an otter!" Hugh grumped.
"No you don't, Hugh, not 'round my dogs. Why, they'd tear an otter or a fox to pieces," Sewallis harshly countered as they emerged in the sunshine to walk the old brick path between the kitchen garden and the flower garden. Bustling, careless of where they put their feet, three "men" striving to walk side-by-side… or lead and dominate.